Cladding Dilemma

[ultramods]

We have bought a plot in the grounds of a former victorian hospital. The site is now a conservation area and the old granite hospital buildings have been converted (started in 2006) into flats and a few hundred new standard developer houses have been built - The criteria for developer houses was natural slate roof, cream render and wooden white windows and doors. 

 

We submitted our planning application back in July, which was a slightly more modern take on the existing buildings, but using the same materials (slate roof, white render and granite walls), however the council asked us to withdraw the application as they didn't like the design, specifically:

1. The orientation, they wanted it rotated by 90 degrees.
2. The shape was too boxy.
3. Not allowed white render walls, has to be similar to developer new builds (a pinky cream)
4. They think because our house is marginally closer to the old buildings it needs to be 'more special'
5. Too Symmetrical
6. Not allowed a wall or hedge for boundary

 

After withdrawing the application we met the planners and they indicated that they they would support a more contemporary design as planning has progressed since 2006, they are keen to seen a distinction between old historic buildings and new buildings. We discussed using standing seam Zinc or Vieo cladding (RAL 7016), they seemed OK with this.

 

We made the following changes:

1. Changed orientation
2. Changed the design and materials to be more contemporary
3. Added a gable to make the building less boxy.
4. Changed the fence to a hedge

 

Architect sent a couple of sketches to the planners last week of the new design, they replied today saying that:

1. We can't have white render, it needs to have a pink hue, to match the other buildings
2. We can't have metal cladding on roof and walls - they suggest either:
   1. Metal roof, wood cladding and render for walls
   2. slate roof, metal cladding and render for walls

 

What do people think about the councils suggestions regarding the cladding? 

 

I am pretty disappointed TBH, it feels like they keep contradicting themselves, in one breath they say the house needs to be different from all the other buildings and can be contemporary, but then say the walls need to be the same as the existing buildings. And we can't use a modern material on roof and walls that is often used on roof and walls.

 

 

 

[bassanclan]

Personally I don't like the zince cladding, but more objectively it is an alien material to that site.

 

The external appearance should take signals from the surrounding, either natural or other buildings.

 

I think that house would stick out like a sore thumb, rather than being a more modern interpretation of the existing houses.

[ProDave]

You have reduced the number of complaints.

 

What do you have against  just agreeing a render with a pink hue?

 

It seems they would accept metal roof, timber and render (pink hue) for the walls. Is that not your solution?

[ultramods]

When we met with the planners one of them didn't like the double height windows. However when I explained how they fit into the design, they agreed that they could stay. It seems that for the zinc cladding they haven't justified why we can't have it on both walls and roof. I don't want to use a third cladding, just for the sake of it. It just seams very subjective. 

 

I guess the the reason I posted was to see if people had experienced similar issues and how they were resolved.

[vivienz]

We haven't yet, but we may do soon.  We've just put in for PP for a replacement dwelling in north Dorset and the design has a slate roof which we propose to also use to clad the upper storey of the building, with stone cladding on the ground floor.  The planning officer distinctly said 'no render' during a pre-app last year, which we agree with, but as in your case, it will all get rather busy if we have 3 different materials covering the building.

[jack]

9 hours ago, ultramods said:

It seems that for the zinc cladding they haven't justified why we can't have it on both walls and roof. I don't want to use a third cladding, just for the sake of it. It just seems very subjective. 

 

From what you've said, I think they've justified it to the level required in the circumstances. In a conservation area, they do have the right to control appearance, and if you can't convince them, you need to consider moving towards what they're asking. Is there a way to make it feel like you're giving them something while still retaining most of what you want? 

 

You say they're contradicting themselves, but I'm not so sure. Yes, they want new buildings to look like new buildings. That's the way of modern planning. That doesn't mean that they want every element to be completely different from the existing buildings. On the contrary, the usual approach is to stick to a similar form and introduce an interesting play with materials, or stick with existing materials and play with form. What you can't do is both, or do one to too great an extent. You're right that the line feels subjective, but unfortunately there isn't a perfectly objective way of judging this.

 

I'd also say that your planning department seems to be engaging and working with you in a very positive way - it isn't always like this, as many people here will tell you from experience (Aside: when I went to our planning department to get some informal feedback on our plans, the senior planning officer's first comment was "Please don't show me something from Grand Designs. We can't stand Grand Designs around here. We've managed to only allow two Huf Houses and we fought both of them all the way to appeal". At the time, I had my hand in a bag to pull out an issue of Grand Designs magazine that had a picture of something along the lines of what we were thinking of applying for. I quickly put the bag down!). 

 

Incidentally, I know you're not looking for feedback on the design, but to me, all that dark zinc does feel a bit oppressive relative to the "lighter" feel of the surrounding houses, especially when a lot of the lighter areas of the cladding are obscured by hedging. 

 

Also, I agree with you on the additional materials point. That just sounds arbitrary. In particular, I don't like their suggestions for combining render with another form of wall cladding and then having a third material for the roof. I'd rather have more render on the walls and stick with just the two materials. 

 

I hope you don't mind this level of honest feedback. 

[ultramods]

Thank you for the feedback.

 

I have decided that we are going to propose the materials from the original application, slate, granite and render (similar to existing buildings) and hope that this time they accept it, with the other changes we have made to the orientation and form of the building.

 

https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/93389382

 

Edited September 29, 2017 by ultramods

[Temp]

I think your latest proposal looks a lot better than the zinc cladding. I've nothing against zinc cladding but I think there was too much of it on your proposal.

 

I strongly recommend you do a better "street view" drawing than this one!

[jack]

14 minutes ago, Temp said:

I think your latest proposal looks a lot better than the zinc cladding.

 

Agreed.

To me, it looks better with the lighter renders in all the examples at the Houzz link. Definitely worth spending some time optimising the exact shades of the different materials so they work with each other.